The fallout from the falldown

I got to the judicial building this morning, after having gone back to the police station where I was held last night. This was to get my truck out of impound. I knew that I needed copies of all my documentation and worked to get it together. There was one paper that I could not find and figured it must have been in the truck. I did have a copy of it though.

At the judicial building I was to find out if I could get my truck out and what further proceedings needed to take place. I expected to go in there and find that the family was bringing a lawsuit against me and the taxi driver. Instead, the tables were turned. They offered me the chance to sue the boy for any damages to my vehicle and expenses incurred. I did not see any damages on my truck and the expenses incurred for having my truck towed and impounded will not be too significant. I suspect less than $100. This was simply a terrible accident and I have no plans to sue.

Since I did not have the one paper, I had to get permission to go to the impound yard and retrieve it. I would have to be accompanied by an employee of the government to look for the paper. Just after I had waited for 1.5 hours in the office and they finally got all the paperwork in place to go look for it, my wife called and said she found it at home. So that the office could justify all the paperwork, and so that they would not be in trouble for having gone through the process to get permission, we still went through all the motions. I went with them to the impound yard (15 minutes away) and we “looked through” all the papers in the truck and did not find it.

I returned home to get the papers and grab a quick interview for Missionary Talks. I was also told that the paper had to be translated into Spanish and notarized. It was then 3:00 and I took everything to a friend’s house to start the translation. By 6:00 I had the paperwork in hand, in Spanish and under the seal of a Notary. And, $30 poorer for the process.

I understood that the impound yard would be open 24 hours a day and that I could go get my truck tonight. I returned to the judicial building, which is open 24 hours, with my family. I finally got to give my official statement and signed it along with giving them a nice thumb print.

The impound office was closed by then, but I now have all the paperwork to get my truck out in the morning. I spent approximately 11 hours in the process of all this today and I still don’t have my truck. Furthermore, I will have to pay extra because it stayed in there another day. But with that, it should all be over. Whew!

The boy is still in the hospital and is pretty badly hurt, but not at all fatal.

6 thoughts on “The fallout from the falldown”

  1. Just remind me not to take my vehicle down there when I go to visit you. Glad that everything is going your way again. We will be praying for the young man’s recovery.

  2. Let me see if I got this straight… Some kid hit your truck, but you’re the one that went to jail, had to spend all day dealing with it, and you have to pay for your truck being impounded?

  3. This is all a result of the system here in Mexico. They work under a Napoleonic system of law: guilty until proven innocent. I had to go to jail until my innocence was proven.

    Having to deal with it all day is just part of life here as well. Nothing gets accomplished quickly. Though I am not “used to” it yet, I have come to accept that anything which should take an hour back home will take 10 hours here.

    I could sue the boy to get the money back for having my truck impounded, but since he is in the hospital (and will probably be for a long time) I think I can shoulder a bit of the cost myself.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.